


Horrificator

by darkesky



Series: Duality [5]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Akuma Attack, Arguing, Episode: s01 Horrificator, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:35:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24164482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkesky/pseuds/darkesky
Summary: Adrien pitches up his voice to mock a reporter. Forming a fist, he pretends he holds a microphone and shifts to face a ‘camera.’ “‘So, tell me more about Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng when you were growing up. I find it hard to believe a superstar such as herself would attend school with someone like you.’”“Shut! Up!” She reaches over and tries to bat away the microphone.“‘Oh! I see Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng would like to speak for herself! Any words of wisdom?”“Adrien, cut it out!” At this point, Marinette’s face has gone bright red.---In which movie villains and superheroes are a little too real (and everyone has a hard day)
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Nino Lahiffe, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, Felix Agreste & Adrien Agreste
Series: Duality [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555636
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33





	Horrificator

**Author's Note:**

  * For [timerise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timerise/gifts).



> And we are back to regular Wednesday updates! It's been really fun to get back into Miraculous because all of the characters have so much DEPTH (though, totally, it remains attributed to my dear friend timerise and anyone reading this should go read her own fic)

_ Trixx stopped believing in love a long time ago. When people started waging wars under the pretense, when people started crushing others’ hearts in the name, she realized love would be just another motive to commit atrocities. And if you were willing to murder and slaughter, then could it really be called love? Love shouldn’t come with sacrifice. _

_ “It makes sense,” Duusu said, purposefully sitting out of range of her flute. She debated swinging it out anyway to try and hit his legs. “Foxes are  _ notoriously  _ bad with expressing their emotions.” _

_ “How much do you spend on tissues?” she countered. _

_ Still, though, she’d never admit she found that point valid. She enjoyed playing with her Wielders, toying with their heartstrings. The sooner they learned not to fall in love, the happier they’d be. The two of them could go far together with nobody else holding them down, but if they allowed that love to blind them, she couldn’t imagine wanting to stay with them and continue helping when push came to shove.  _

_ It led to a few arguments with Duusu, especially when it regarded his peachicks. “It’s not about that. Besides, you’re a bit hypocritical to insist they don’t fall in love.” _

_ “And who do you think I’m in love with?” Trixx snorted as she puffed out a note on her flute. She let it linger in the air, manifest as a cloud of smoke shaped like a heart. Then, she flicked her tail and split the illusion in half. Turning with a toothy smile, she ignored Duusu’s astonishment. “You?” _

_ “Of course. You do have a huge crush on me.” He settled back with a smug smile. _

_ She let another heart cloud come and go. “You wish.” _

_ While Trixx  _ didn’t  _ have a crush on Duusu, she’d never allow herself to act on it. They were meant to be the better parts of each other. Maybe fate allowed Duusu to be so open and free with his heart so Trixx would never get her own cracked in half. Some of the other Wielders remarked her smile never reached her eyes. She smirked and flirted and laughed, but Wayzz asked once if she meant any of it.  _

_ And maybe she didn’t, maybe she did. At the end of the day, she prioritized herself. She kept herself from falling head over heels for anyone, and if her kits let their guard down enough, she wouldn’t wipe their tears and snot. She’d tell them to buck up and offer a free transformation, on her.  _

_ When kits get crushes, they  _ scream.  _ Foxes screamed when they fell in love, and nobody associated those guttural cries for joy. She interpreted them as inner foxes crying out in agony at the concept of having to share. She interpreted them as inner foxes begging their outer fox not to be so foolish, so silly.  _

_ Duusu scooted closer and nudged her. “I do wish. Maybe not a crush on me, but a crush on anyone. Just to… Love is the greatest feeling in the world. I can’t imagine  _ intentionally  _ foregoing it.” _

_ “If you keep that up, I’ll think you’re in love with me.” She got up and floated away from him. If he insisted on his lectures, she would return to her room for another year of solitude and silence. Master Fu kept insisting an  _ anxious evil  _ ran amok; he might need a Fox and a Peacock Wielder soon enough.  _

_ Foxes screamed when they fell in love. _

_ She also interpreted them as inner fire; her foxes were loud, proud, and ready to fight. _

_ - _

_ Click. _

As the world crackles around them, some invisible force pressing against the window, his heart thunders loud enough for everyone to hear. It roars over the screams and the chaos. He listens well enough to know he doesn’t  _ have  _ a choice. He always wished to be brave growing up; he cycled between wanting to be a firefighter, a police officer, a superhero. Now, in the greatest time of need, he  _ knows  _ better.

He grabs her shoulders, her beautiful and sculpted shoulders, and forces her to look at him. When he speaks, no doubt escapes; he almost convinces himself.  _ “Agent Smith, it’s too dangerous! We must evacuate!” _

_ “You’re suggesting we run, Officer Jones?”  _ She shoves him off, and electricity sparks when her gloved hands touch his bare. As he retreats back a step, he takes her in. Already, bravery shines across her face. The dreadlocks start to fall out of the ponytail and instead framing her face, full of grime and dirt. Her black uniform, fresh from the agency, shows skin off in areas where the monsters’ claws came too close.  _ “After it devoured my family, my friends, even my beloved dog, Sniffles? Never! I won’t run!” _

Behind her, a shadow starts to loom. It creeps closer, and he gapes, trying to cut her to provide her some warning. He’d throw himself in front, but he’s too paralyzed to move. They should have evacuated when he said so! They should have moved already! Now, as she finishes…  _ “I no longer fear it, I’m going to face it, then I’ll— _ AH!” __

“Cut!” Nino slams his camera shut, and Adrien shakes the mood off. It rolls off his skin and disappears into the open air. As he takes a deep breath, he flashes a smile to Felix. His brother sits in the back with Nathaniel, and he gives him a long look. Then, he returns to gossiping about something.

Adrien pouts when Felix turns before laughing, crouching down to help Mylene out from underneath the desk. She offers a sheepish, grateful smile.

Ivan shakes the monster mask off, revealing a furious blush beneath. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you—”

_ “You’re  _ not the problem! Mylene is!” Stalking forward, Nino places his camera down and snatches up one of the stray scripts laying around. 

As he starts to flip through the pages, Alya laughs. She sits cross-legged on the nearest desk with another camera, allowing them an extra angle.  _ That  _ was Felix’s idea to make sure the film would be of higher quality. “Nino, we’re never going to finish this film in time. I told you we were cutting it a little close.”

“Ugh!” Nino finds the scene and flips around the packet, revealing it to Mylene. She averts her gaze as he starts reading the character description. Adrien could recite it from memory:  _ ‘a hero from the special forces; brave, beautiful, fearless.’  _ Nino posted the final draft on Friday. As he got dragged back and forth between lessons, photo shoots, and spontaneous fencing practices with Alix and Kim (since the  _ final  _ tryout would occur that Friday), he read the script.

Mylene keeps her eyes glued to her shoes. “I’m sorry… Nino, I  _ promise.  _ I’ll do it better on the next take. And then, we can move to the next scene. We’re already halfway done though!”

“We still have a half to go,” Nino retorts.

Adrien takes the chance, as the argument starts to brew, to duck out. Tensions are high enough at home; Felix and his father keep snapping at each other for the smallest things. All of them regard akumas and akuma safety, though. Some of them make sense  _ (“If you never allow us to find an escape path out of the house, we’ll never be able to survive a direct attack.” “If you spend all your time ‘escaping,’ as Adrien already tries frequently, I’ll never be able to find you should an emergency occur.”);  _ others seem like a stretch  _ (“Felix, that dirty dish of yours will give away your location to the akuma.” “Well, your inability to cook, Gabriel, will make you the first to go.”).  _

Sliding up to Marinette, who pages through the script with a highlighter between her teeth and another marking it up, he offers his best smile. “Mind if you join me? It looks like we might have some downtime between takes.”

“What? Oh!” she splutters around the highlighter before realizing, yanking it out. It drags a rosy mess around her palm. “Yeah, totally! Let me just… I’ll scoot over for you! I didn’t mean to… Yeah, go ahead, join me.”

“Thanks, Marinette!” He hops up on the table next to her. 

The two of them sit in silence before Marinette nudges him with her knee. When he glances up, she goes bright red before biting on her lip, trying to school her expression. He can’t help but grin at her. Marinette feels everything one hundred percent. Even when most people might be a little embarrassed, she goes bright red and stammers. It’s… Nice to be around someone so real, so unrehearsed. It’s also a little… Rare? 

“You’re really good at acting,” she says.

Adrien beams. “Thanks! Yeah, being fake’s my day job.”

A beat of silence passes between the two of them. Marinette scoots even closer and adjusts how she sits until both of their legs dangle. She starts kicking them, and he tries not to laugh. She looks so… Young here. Open, unrestrained.

“Are you okay?” Her voice drops into a whisper to make sure nobody can hear. He doubts anyone tries to listen. Between Nino reaming Mylene for ruining yet another take (though he thinks  _ ruining  _ might be too strong of a word) and Chloe starting to make snide comments from the back, the classroom buzzes with noise.

Now, though, Marinette carves out a space where the two of them can sit without anyone else. 

He blinks. “Of course! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Oh, I dunno…” The kicking stops. Now, she ventures to look up at him. “You just seem… I don’t mean to prod! Or, uh, push! Or… Any other of the p-words which are bad. I just… Just… When you were modeling the other day, when Stormy Weather came by, you didn’t seem to enjoy it. And I can’t imagine putting so much time into something you don’t really love…  _ No offense, I’m not pretending to know anything about you, and I don’t want to ruin anything between us.” _

The words sink like a rock. 

“It’s a nice way to bond with my father,” Adrien finally says. Then, he tries to offer a brighter smile, a megawatt smile. A smile worthy of Chat Noir to prove he’s  _ okay.  _ “I might not want to be a model, but it’s not an awful day job. It’s… Well, it’s not designing award-winning  _ clothing  _ or living above the best bakery in town, but…”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Marinette throws out her hands. “I’m not an award-winning—”

“I’m getting ready for the day,” Adrien says sagely, “when I can tell  _ everyone  _ I knew you before you got big. I’ll tell everyone I went to school with  _ the  _ Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and they won’t believe me!”

“Wait—”

Adrien pitches up his voice to mock a reporter. Forming a fist, he pretends he holds a microphone and shifts to face a ‘camera.’  _ “‘So, tell me more about Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng when you were growing up. I find it hard to believe a superstar such as herself would attend school with someone like you.’” _

“Shut! Up!” She reaches over and tries to bat away the microphone.

Instead, he moves closer and presses the microphone at her face.  _ “‘Oh! I see Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng would like to speak for herself! Any words of wisdom?” _

“Adrien, cut it out!” At this point, Marinette’s face has gone bright red, but she starts to laugh despite herself. Even as she wheezes and stammers out her words, her eyes dance. Nonetheless, Adrien backs up.

The mood sobers for a second. “Sorry, I got carried away. But I mean it, Marinette. You’re going to be a famous designer one day.”

“Adrien—”

“Adrien!” Nino claps his hands together, and both of them startle. “Dude, you can talk to Marinette when we’re  _ not  _ on a time crunch! C’mon! We need to get filming again, and you’re one of the leading actors.”

“Duty calls,” he chirps.

Marinette suddenly lunges, grasping at his hand. “Thank you.”

He stares down at their joined hands. 

“There’s no need to thank me for telling the truth,” he says at last before letting the feeling of Officer Jones  _ (somewhat cowardly, young, but passionate in all his endeavours)  _ roll back onto him like a second skin.

-

“The monster mask isn’t  _ that  _ scary,” Nino grumbles as he sits back on the table. Alya slides to the floor with her own camera, ready to take the second shot. He wants one to be far away, and he wants one to take various angles from over the shoulder. As it stands, Nino already needs to do this scene  _ twice.  _ Once to get Mylene’s face, once to get Adrien’s. 

Right now, he’d be lucky to get through it  _ once,  _ and Nino wants to jump out the window. 

Adrien sends him a smile, trying to be reassuring, but Nino waves him off. Officer Jones wouldn’t smile. Nino would know; he wrote the  _ entire show  _ over a week. He thought the directing, the acting would be the easy part. So, he wasted way too much time typing it out and deciding who plays who, and now he really lags behind schedule.

He should’ve stuck with DJing. As a DJ, you worked with other people, but they only existed in their work. Music spoke for itself; music acted as its own language. It followed a certain route, a certain rhythm, and he knew he’d be able to uncover the right way to mix it all together into something presentable. And if it wasn’t, at least it’d be some form, some level of enjoyable.

The scene proceeds like last time. Adrien and Mylene tumble through the classroom door, Adrien looking frantic while Mylene looks pensive. The two of them exchange some dialogue, shifting closer as if they feel  _ forced  _ together, as if gravity itself conspires them to fall in love. And then, Adrien reaches out and grabs her shoulders, taking any pensiveness out and leaving only franticness.

_ “Agent Smith, it’s too dangerous! We must evacuate!”  _ Felix told Nino he calls this the ‘TV voice.’ It makes sense. It’s also the voice Adrien used when he spoke to Vincent not even a week ago. Scripted, perfected, and forced—even though it doesn’t  _ sound  _ forced unless you know Adrien well.

And damn right Nino knows Adrien well. They might not have been friends for long, but they’ll  _ be  _ friends for a long time.

_ “You’re suggesting we run, Officer Jones? After it devoured my family, my friends, even my beloved dog, Sniffles? Never! I won’t run! I no longer fear it, I’m going to face it, then I’ll—  _ EEP!”

“Mylene!” Nino doesn’t bother yelling cut this time around; everyone knows they won’t be able to use this take anyway. 

She cowers for another second before managing to get to her feet. As she wraps her arms around her, she looks over Nino’s shoulder to Alya. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it’s just that… It’s really  _ h-hard,  _ and—” 

“And, and, and,” Chloe continues, making her voice snottier than usual. Nino resists the urge to smash the camera against his forehead and break down crying. When Mylene turns to stare at her, eyes wide with betrayal and glimmering tears waiting to fall, Chloe presses onwards. “C’mon, Nino. Are you even surprised that she can’t handle it? She  _ is  _ talking to one of the biggest villains of the school—and that’s without the mask!”

“He doesn’t even need it!” Sabrina cooes.

Marinette’s head snaps up, and her voice comes out hard. “Chloe—”

“Oh, careful, Sabrina! If you upset him enough, maybe he’ll turn back into Stoneheart! Kim, guard your ankle!” Chloe breaks into loud giggles, and Sabrina collapses against her. 

Alya flips around. “Do you  _ mind  _ acting like a human being for once, or is that out of your capabilities?”

“Why? Worried your boyfriend might turn back into the Bubbler?” Chloe hums. “I bet it’s hard to kiss when his face looks like that—”

“Chloe, please,” Adrien says with a strained smile.

Alya doesn’t have the same reservations. She shoves the other camera into Nino’s hands and starts to march up to the two of them, hand balled into a fist by her side. “Look here, brat. Just because you think you can—”

“Oh, careful, Alya! Nino might break your camera… You know how he is when he gets mad.” Chloe leans forward and bops Alya on the nose. When Alya blinks, taken aback, she cackles and gets to her feet. Sabrina follows suit. “I can think of one obvious solution for this—”

“I’m ready to do the scene again,” Adrien tries, sounding just a  _ little  _ hysteric. Felix snorts.

Mylene nods frantically too, swiping at the tears smearing the fake dirt. “Yeah! Let’s just get back on it! We don’t need to, uh… Be mean and fight over it.”

“That sounds like a good plan.” Nino tries to ignore the heat pushing into his cheeks. Reaching up, he shoves his cap farther down on his head and gestures for Ivan to put on the mask. As Ivan starts to tug it on, ignoring the fact he looks like someone just ducked a cold bucket of water on him, Mylene eyes the gesture.

She turns around and shrieks. 

Ivan yanks off the mask while Chloe explodes into another round of laughter. Lobbing the mask at Nino, he almost drops the cameras in an attempt to catch it… Marinette  _ did  _ spend a lot of time working on it. She spent as many sleepless nights on this project as Nino did at this point even though she seems to be handling it better. “Nino, let someone else do it.”

“No,  _ you  _ have to do it. You’re playing the monster.” He tosses the mask back.

Behind them, Sabrina gasps loudly. “I wonder who will win? Stoneheart or the Bubbler?”

“Shut  _ up!”  _ Alya growls.

Mylene scrambles back. “I just need to take a breath.”

Chloe jeers. “Why? We’re just going by their histories.”

“Chloe,” Adrien tries.

Felix laughs. “Why bother? She never changes.”

Chloe grins. “You’re right, I  _ don’t  _ change.”

Marinette. “That’s not a good thing.

Chloe. “Why? I’m not transforming into horrific beasts like  _ some  _ people in this room.”

Marinette. “You can’t use that against them! You are such a—”

Adrien. “Guys, let’s all just calm down—”

Mylene. “I just need my happy song, that’s… Dad taught it to me for a reason.”

Alya. “News flash, brainiac. The reason we  _ have  _ akumas is because of you!”

Sabrina. “I don’t think Chloe is creating akumas here.” 

Marinette. “She definitely isn’t helping.”

Alya. “Of course she is! Who’s the one mocking every single classmate we have?”

Adrien. “Alya—”

Mylene.  _ “Smelly wolf, smelly wolf…” _

Alya. “What, Adrien? Is it too much to ask for you to stand up for your friends?”

Chloe. “Excuse you, Adrien isn’t friends like people like  _ you.  _ He’s friends with me.”

Alya. “Oh, really? I didn’t realize Adrien’s taste was shallow, arrogant—”

Mylene.  _ “Stinky breath and slimy— _ AH!”

The argument dies as Mylene shrieks louder than any other time. As she backpedals from Adrien, who throws up his hands sheepishly and tries to calm her down, she hits the table and yelps. Then, she glances around the room and takes in all of them. Alya stands inches away from Chloe, looking ready to throttle her, and Marinette stands up and shouts from her own corner. 

Chloe steps away and drapes herself on a desk, leaning forward. “Oh, look. The scaredy cat strikes again.”

“Just  _ stop!”  _ Mylene spins on her heel and tears out of the room, hiccuping with the force of a sob. As soon as she’s out of the room, it slams shut behind her, and the room falls into silence again. Ivan sends Chloe a dirty look before hurrying after her. 

Nino powers down his camera with a curse.

-

Marinette shifts back to her bag in time to see Tikki peeking out with those bright blue eyes, obviously concerned. It doesn’t take a genius to know why she risks exposing herself. As she reaches up and starts spinning an earring, she counts. She could see five people in this room alone, from this  _ one argument,  _ getting akumatized… Unless Nino couldn’t get re-akumatized. Then, it goes down to just Mylene, Ivan, Alya, and Chloe.

Still, she doubts Hawkmoth will pass up on such a prime opportunity. 

It takes about fifteen seconds after Mylene flees for Nino to explode. “Epic, Chloe! Just epic! What are we supposed to do now without our  _ leading actress?” _

“Oh, please. If that was the best actress in Paris, then Paris wouldn’t be the film capital of the world.” Chloe stretches back to pluck an available script. As she starts aimlessly flipping through the pages, she catches Chloe inspecting her reflection in her nails. 

Felix makes a noise in the back of his throat. She spins around and inspects him. “What? Have something to add?”

“Just that your point is completely extraneous. Were you implying we hire someone for a  _ student film festival?”  _ He rolls his eyes and settles back against the wall. Nathaniel looks up from his sketchbook to give him a look  _ close  _ to astonishment before shaking his head without saying a word.

Nino groans. “It doesn’t even matter. We can’t hire someone, and now we can’t even put on this show! So, all of that hard work we put in means absolutely  _ nothing.” _

Sliding up to Nino, Alya stands next to him and guides him to put the camera down. Then, she carefully grabs at his hand and starts stroking her finger over the back of his hand. He stares at her for a few seconds, and Chloe goes to corrupt the moment, so Marinette clears her throat.

Then, she focuses her energy on Alya and Nino; if she focuses on Chloe, she’ll end up yelling again. “Guys, okay, we can’t do this. If we want to finish this film, which we  _ all  _ do, we need to work  _ together.” _

“What? Do you want us to sing  _ Kumbaya  _ around a fire and hold hands?” Felix says, but he drops his voice. She can’t tell if he intended for Marinette to hear or not, so she opts to push on as if he never spoke.

She doubts he minds. “Nino made me producer for a reason. And I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure we’re done filming by  _ tonight.  _ Nath, how much time do we have left?”

“He’s not a human stopwatch—” Felix starts to protest.

Nathaniel offers Marinette a smile. “Twenty-six hours, fifteen minutes!”

“Thanks, Nath!” She turns and starts counting the rest of her responsibilities on her fingers. “We still have editing, post-sound, soundtrack…”

_ (Felix leans into Nathaniel. “Have you actually been timing that? Christ, you are a human stopwatch.” _

_ “Mari asked me to.” Nathaniel shrugs. _

_ Marinette resists the urge to laugh for the first time during this whole debacle.) _

“Assuming we get the film moving soon, we can finish on time.” Nino turns the camera in his hands, studying its sleek form. Then, Alya sneaks around him to hit the power button. As it starts to boot back to life, he takes a deep breath. “Yeah, we can still finish this puppy as long as nothing else happens. We just have to…  _ Behave,  _ I guess. And I think we can all pull off being good for a little while. Right?”

“Right!” 

“Who’s taking Mylene’s part?” Adrien asks. He moved to sit on a desk at some point, but Marinette didn’t notice. 

She takes a second to admire him in the uniform she crafted. Adrien wears a similar outfit to what Officer Roger wears every day with a few details swapped around. His blue polo has the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, tucked in somewhat sloppily to his pants. The black belt holds a gold buckle, shining in the light every time he turns (though Marinette  _ refuses  _ to look at his belt because that’s inappropriate, and then she’s blushing, and…). His hair sits in every which direction underneath the simple hat titled ‘POLICE’ from being knocked off in various scenes today.

Then, Marinette realizes the conversation continued on without her.

“I don’t even  _ need  _ to read the script. I’ve watched this, what, fourteen times? Because Mylene couldn’t get it together? I’ve taken  _ years  _ of acting lessons… Ask my dear Adrikins here. We’ve taken a few together, actually. And ‘sides, I could tell you how this particular scene ends.” Chloe punctuates her statement with a wink to Adrien, and he reaches up to rub at the back of his neck. 

Alya scoffs. “With Jones and Smith making a promise to watch each other’s back in order to get out?”

“Uh,  _ no.  _ Have you even read your script?” Chloe folds the page back in her script and leans back, adopting a storyteller’s voice. Marinette startles when it comes out smooth and lower than usual… For a second, she finds it hard to believe it’s  _ Chloe  _ reading and not someone else. She really did take acting lessons. How did Marinette  _ not  _ know? They’ve been in the same class for years.  _ “Thank you, Jones, but I had that handled… Of course, you did, and—and you can call me Dewey. Dewey Jones… Dewey Jones? Well, thank you. It’s good to know I have someone in my corner… You can always count on me…’  _ And then they lean in to share what the author described as a ‘tender kiss.’”

_ “WHAT?!”  _ Marinette shrieks at the same time as Alya. 

Alya lunges for the script Nino discarded, giving up on holding his hand. “I didn’t edit that! Nino, you told me I could edit the final script!”

“Well…” He shuffles his feet before gritting his teeth and pushing forward. “Look, I said you could edit the final script, but  _ you  _ got busy interviewing Aurore after she agreed to answer your questions about being an akuma victim. So, I took some liberties and messed around with the final draft. It’s a little tweak! It moves the story forward!”

“You  _ told  _ me,” Alya starts.

Nino shrugs. “And you told me you’d be available to edit my script. It’s not my fault you got distracted by your Ladyblog.”

“Well… That’s not fair!” she splutters. “You could’ve asked me after I was done! It wasn’t like the Ladyblog hogged up all of my time this past week and weekend! Or you could’ve just,  _ I don’t know,  _ text me?”

“I needed to get my script done. Sorry I didn’t spend time running it by you.” He rolls his eyes and steps away from her. “It’s a  _ small  _ tweak.”

“Can we save the lovers’ quarrel—”

“WE ARE NOT LOVERS!” Alya and Nino both shout at the same time, turning to glare at Chloe.

She smirks and rolls her eyes, obviously not buying it. “Look, why does it even matter? Let’s just get going, and Adrikins can pucker up. It’s not like it’s something we haven’t done before.”

Marinette’s brain grinds to a stop.

She spins to see if Adrien will protest, but he shifts and glances down at the floor, adamantly staring at none of them. He starts to say something before shaking his head. They… When have they kissed before? When they were children? Does that even count? Her first kiss was,  _ technically,  _ Nino, but neither of them thinks it counts! Or was it when they were at, like, a photo shoot? Then, it also doesn’t count! It was for a job, and that drastically changes what can be considered…

It doesn’t matter. 

She won’t let them kiss again.

Clearing her throat, she turns to Adrien. “C’mon, Adrien, I… We can’t let Mylene just  _ leave.  _ She won the leading role, fair and square. She was  _ so  _ good at the auditions. Surely, we can wait five minutes for me to find her and bring her back. She  _ deserves  _ this. Don’t… Don’t you think so? She’s… She’s your co-star?”

Adrien starts to nod, but Chloe gasps. “God, do you have to be such a goody two-shoes? Fine, go. You won’t be able to find her anyway! I bet she’s hiding in that trash can she calls a home… But who can be surprised her father is  _ literally  _ a clown?”

“Mime,” Marinette corrects. “And I’m getting her back.”

-

Mylene starts moving, and while she doesn’t know where she intends to end up, she keeps moving, keeps running, until she bursts out the front door. As the fresh air hits her face, she gulps it down as fast as possible. It burns its way down her throat and interrupts her shaking sobs. 

Her dad  _ told  _ her she shouldn’t let Chloe get to her. He always tells her Chloe is just a bully, just a mean girl who wants to tear other people down. In a way, he insists, it could be considered a compliment. She  _ knows  _ Mylene will go far with her talents. If she steps back to inspect Chloe’s actions, she’ll know Chloe can’t actually do anything to her.

But words still  _ hurt.  _ Even if she knows, deep down, she’s not a loser or a scaredy cat or anything, her heart still stings. 

As she staggers over and collapses onto the bench, she curls in tight on herself. If she texts her dad to show up, he’ll struggle to find an excuse to leave work… But he  _ will.  _ And he’ll pick her up, and he’ll start to say something, and she’ll break into tears. And then he’ll have questions, and they’ll go to the school again, just for the school to tell them there’s absolutely nothing to be done.

She can’t hear that.

Not again.

Once, they all tried to make a pact and go to talk to Principal Damocles about Chloe. They took a group of four people last year—Marinette, her primary target, Alix, who abhorred Chloe with all of her being, Rose, who received hate mail in her locker from Chloe that year, and Mylene. For a second, she thought they made strides. Then, Chloe’s father burst into the office and shut down the whole operation. 

Chloe might as well be untouchable. She throws around hate with no way to stop it from proceeding. Even now, as Mylene cries into her lap and keeps swiping at her eyes as if that’ll make the tears go away, Chloe sits above them all. 

The bench screeches as someone eases down next to her, and her heart leaps into her throat. As she shifts to face him, she manages to hide her flinching into another sob—though Mylene doubts it counts as an improvement. “You came after me, Ivan.”

“Don’t listen to them.” He slings his backpack onto the floor and starts to pull at the zippers. He still wears the monster suit Marinette made for him. All red, matted fur and the occasional blue stripes. Marinette’s skills really came to life here; she wears a fitted black jacket over a black jumpsuit, and it reminds her of a cosplay for Black Widow. When she first said that, Marinette nodded and called her a ‘better superhero than Ladybug’ which set off the  _ entire  _ class into a debate whether the Miraculous Team could be compared to the Avengers. One, after all, was fictional; one lived in their hometown.

She scoots closer and presses their thighs together, sleek fabric against furry. She likes how she fits into Ivan, how he can tower over and protect her. While Mylene  _ knows  _ she needs to learn how to stand up for herself, Ivan being in her corner isn’t a big thing. He’s a gentle giant anyway. She doubts he’d throw a punch or defeat a supervillain for her, but… But knowing he’d  _ want  _ to, knowing he can hold her after it passes… Mylene likes that more. “I know, I know. It’s stupid I’m getting so… Worked up over it.”

“It’s not stupid! It’s… It’s easy to get worked up when they’re all screaming insults,” Ivan says. He reaches for her hand, and she lays it on top of his. She marvels at how small hers is in comparison, easing her fingers in the gaps of his. “And they can only scream insults because they’re not… They’re not as amazing as you. Come back, Mylene. There’s no way we can get as good of a movie without you.”

“I think anyone could act better than me,” she laughs. She squeezes his hand tightly to get the encouragement to go on, and he looks at her like she’s his entire world. “I’m just… It’s a small dream.”

“It’s a doable dream! You’re going to be a great actress!” He reaches out with their combined hands, flailing at the world unfolding before them. She laughs as she tries to imagine when she could be an actress. Her family doesn’t have the spare expenses to get acting lessons. And she lacks any way to receive opportunities to put herself out there. If Mylene becomes an actress, pigs will start flying. 

After a few moments, Ivan drops their hands and reaches for his backpack. After fishing around, he plucks out a pin. On its sleek surface, she can make out a black skull, its eye sockets melting green. “I don’t wanna pressure you… So I’m gonna leave you alone to decide. But… Here’s  _ my  _ good luck charm. It’s… It’s from my favorite band, the Zombie Skull Crushers. I know we’ve talked about it before.”

“Wow… Thank you.” Mylene watches as Ivan gets up and retreats back into the skull. As she rolls the pin around in the center of her palm, she drags the corner of the black jacket over. Piercing through it, she lets it snap back into place to admire it. Marinette may not like it, but when she goes back…

But then she’s thinking about it again, and all she can imagine is how Chloe will laugh at her again. And how Adrien acts so much  _ better  _ than her. And how everyone in the room can act circles around her, but none of them even want it as a job. She’s the one pursuing a useless career instead of something practical. 

She just… Acting provides a certain level of sway. And with that, she could stick up for the little guys. All of those actresses she loves so much… All of the actresses which inspired her to be herself, to stick things out even if situations are tough… She wanted to be someone’s role model. And that’s why she threw herself into acting because with her money, she could give it back to charity. She could help other girls who might not be in the best financial situation achieve their dreams and now…

And now Chloe gets to stomped her dreams, and her lack of talent is the nail in the coffin.

Mylene just needs to get to her feet and start walking. Then, as she gets back to the school, she can burst through the door, brash and bold, like the character Nino wrote for her to play. She’ll smile at Ivan, her sweetheart, and she’ll even wink at Chloe, making the other girl go bright red and stammer to apologize.

She just needs to get up.

But she can’t look up from where she pressed her face into her thighs, trying to blink away the tears swelling in her eyes. As she starts to straighten, taking hiccupy breaths, she manages to spot a glowing butterfly as it drifts through the air before entering through the button Ivan just gave her. She reaches up to swat it away before a voice, compelling and soft and gentle, croons in her mind.

**_She wants to be an actress with her whole soul, since the moment she was born. But even the purest of dreams turn to nightmares in the face of her classmates. How can Mylene become the hero of the story surrounded by so many villains? With so much fear all around her? If she isn’t allowed to keep her dreams, if they insist on making everything a nightmare, she might as well be the one corrupting dreams._ **

A sense of coldness washes through her body, ice being forced through her veins. As she gasps, curling into herself for warmth, the voice overcomes any thoughts left.  _ “Horrificator, I am Hawkmoth. From now on, we can create the fear, we can harness it. Nobody will ever hurt you again, not on my watch. Not even pesky superheroes who give away false hope as if it costs nothing.” _

**_‘Nobody will hurt me again. Nobody will scare me again. I’ll be safe again. I can do whatever I want, I can be whoever I want. Nobody will be able to stop me again—nObOdY can StOp me now. NoThInG sTaNdS iN mY wAy AnYmOrE!’_ **

Horrificator nods as purple and black become to converge on her skin, making her grow and tower over the bench where a weak little girl cried only a moment again.  _ Yes, Hawkmoth. _

**_IT WILL BE WORTH IT._ **

-

“Alya, we don’t have  _ time  _ for this. Can you just let me film  _ my  _ movie?” Nino huffs as he lowers the camera. Chloe, while obviously not dressed as Mylene, takes the place opposite of Adrien. Over Adrien’s shoulders, Sabrina holds massive cue cards with all of Chloe’s lines since she won’t be able to memorize the script in that little time…

Which is why Alya thinks they should wait for Mylene to return! “Oh, so now it’s just  _ your  _ movie?”

“Well, I mean, I wrote it. And I’m directing it. And I  _ cast  _ it.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “But apparently  _ everyone  _ can direct and cast now with no regard to the original vision of the film—”

“Original vision?” She snorts. “You want to talk to me about  _ original vision?  _ What about you randomly shoving in a romantic subplot? I’m sorry you can’t keep it in your pants, but that doesn’t mean our protagonists should have the same problem.”

_ “I  _ can’t keep it in my pants?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

At that moment, Marinette chooses to skid into the classroom and fall over her feet. Alya barely manages to lunge out and grab her before she completely brains herself on the set. Otherwise, Nino will throw a fit about ruining  _ props.  _ After all, he probably made the props all by his lonesome with absolutely no other input from anyone. And if anyone else tried to help him make the props, he probably insisted he could do it, and it was  _ okay  _ she spent time pursuing the Ladyblog as long as he could throw it in her face later along the line  _ (and she realizes she’s being a little unfair, but at least she isn’t a movie tyrant).  _

As she straightens and brushes the dirt off her jeans, Marinette manages to get her words out. “We can’t film without Mylene! Think about all the footage we already shot with her! Besides that, she’s the star of the show! Doesn’t it seem a little wrong just to… Throw her out and replace her like that?”

“The way I see it is that she threw  _ herself  _ out,” Nino interjects.

Alya rolls her eyes. “That’s the way you see everything.”

“Excuse me—”

“Guys, we really don’t have to fight,” Marinette pitches in. She places a hand on Alya’s shoulder to try and calm her, taking in the rest of the room. Most of them fled a little while ago; it happens when your director is a massive asshole who insists everything goes along with  _ his vision.  _ Now, the only people allowed in the room are those essential to the scene. Otherwise, Nino wants them to bang out as many scenes as possible, and if he can, he’ll reshoot them with the fading light of day.

So, Alix, Kim, and Max conduct a scene about the side characters conducting an investigation. Nathaniel and Felix… Just bailed, to be honest. And it leaves Alya, Adrien, Nino, Chloe, and now Marinette to duke it out over a scene she can’t possibly imagine is  _ that  _ important even if Nino keeps emphasising it acts as an emotional catalyst for both of the leads.

Adrien nods and points at Marinette. She goes bright red, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “See? Marinette gets it! Why don’t we just take a breather… I bet we can return to this in five minutes. We’re not getting anything done right now anyway—”

“We don’t have five minutes to spare, Adrien!” Nino snaps, and Adrien flinches back slightly before sighing and slouching against the wall.

Chloe jabs at him, sticking her finger in his side until he pulls back. “Adrikins, that bad posture is gonna  _ wreck  _ your spine. And then you won’t look good for the next photo shoot!”

“You know what? Yes. Adrien, I agree. I’m taking a break from all of Nino’s shit right now… Maybe when we come back, he’ll actually have it sorted out instead of just snapping at us when we’re trying to help.” Alya spins and starts heading out, and behind her, she hears Marinette’s frantic footsteps to follow her. She waits until they’re out of eyeshot of the room to slow down and allow her closest friend to catch up.

Marinette starts to speak, but Alya holds up a finger. “We’re not discussing this until we get somewhere they can’t follow us.”

“What?” Marinette hurries until they walk, elbow-to-elbow. Then, she manages to follow her gaze to the girls’ bathroom and then nods. “Oh, oh! I got it! Okay, let’s go, and then, we can go back and finish the movie.”

“If it was up to me, I’d make sure we wouldn’t finish that movie. That movie is a piece of  _ shit  _ compared to what he showed me last time.” She opens the door to the bathroom, waits for Marinette to enter, and then slams it behind them. As she turns to continue her rant, it comes out with a ragged gasp. Marinette stands, braced against the concrete walls, with her mouth fallen open. 

All across the walls, pink and green goo oozes off every single surface. It takes a few seconds for Alya to notice a few splotches combine and merge into an arrow. It points at one of the unobstructed mirrors. After exchanging eye contact with Marinette, she shoves her behind her and slides forward. She doesn’t want to let Marinette get hurt, and between the two of them, Alya knows she can handle herself a lot better than Marinette.

But the mirror has nothing in it. When she glances into its depth, she finds the stall directly behind it. Turning around, she reaches for the stall door and nudges it open with her sneaker. As the door swings against the wall, she gasps again and slaps a hand over her mouth, inspecting the words written across it.

_ ‘WATCH OUT, LADYBUG CHAT NOIR LE PAON.’ _

Alya slides down to the next stall and kicks the next one open. Leaning forward, she starts reading the words out loud to Marinette. The other girl starts to slide to the ground, hands clapped over her mouth to keep any terrified noises inside.  _ “Thief, daredevil, flake.” _

“Mylene must’ve gotten akumatized,” murmurs Marinette. She sounds almost distant now, empty and hollowed out.

For the first time, she wonders how it affected Marinette. A lot of different people consider the akumas from a variety of angles. Some people adore the variety it allows them in life; Alya considers herself amongst their ranks. She likes the excitement they bring. As long as they don’t become too dangerous, why not allow some…  _ Excitement?  _ And then on the other end of the spectrum, some people don’t even recover from the crippling fear, crippling doubt the akumas give them. Something about it corrupts all emotions, and everything makes everyone scared to feel anything too  _ deeply. _

And Marinette feels everything too hard. If Alya guessed who would be akumatized next, she would assume the next person would be Marinette… After all, the girl goes red and flustered the second Adrien even  _ smiles  _ at her.

Then, it hits Alya. “We have to go tell Nino. We have to go tell  _ everyone.  _ Holy shit, we have to go pull that stupid alarm.”

“Then… Then, let’s go!”

-

“Don’t you think we should head back?” Nathaniel asks as they duck into another empty classroom. While some teachers stay after to help ‘monitor them,’ most of them remain focused on their own work and assignments. As long as Felix avoids them, and they’re easy enough because music pulses underneath the door for most as they refuse to work in silence, they have free domain of the school. 

Felix glances at him before ushering him into the abandoned science classroom. As he shuts the door behind them, locking it, he gestures. “You told me you wanted a larger medium to work.”

“What does…  _ Oh.”  _ He turns to see the whiteboard, unobstructed by formulas or equations. Lining the bottom, the teacher kept a wide variety of colors. While Felix never met the owner of this room, he knew most of the physics teachers kept colors to help explain how components worked together. And while they’ll have to erase whatever Nathaniel draws, Felix  _ does  _ have the newest smartphone with a decent enough photo quality. It can’t capture the beauty of what Nathaniel does, not in its entirety, but hopefully, the memory will fill in the gaps for the two of them. 

He grabs Felix’s arm. He stares at the other boy’s hand for a few moments; Nathaniel  _ clings.  _ It reminds him of Adrien, but even though Adrien clings too, he picks his moments. Only in complete solitude, and even then, Felix turns his back more times than not. To have someone this  _ tactile…  _ It never fails to throw him off. “Don’t you think we’ll get in trouble? We’re supposed to be working on the movie—”

“At the rate they’re going, we’ll never finish the movie. And besides, we’re there as ‘creative supports.’” He wrinkles his nose. The first time Adrien announced his role, Felix knew they would essentially be props. Nino, if he wanted to use the school, needed to make roles for everyone in that class before Miss Bustier would sign off on it. And Felix refused to say anything in a student film about  _ monsters.  _ Really. How much sappier could it possibly get?

Hesitating, Nathaniel scans Felix’s face as if searching for any dishonesty. When he finds nothing, he nods and approaches the board. Snatching one of the markers up, he flicks the cap off and starts doodling idly. It’s more of a practice than anything else. Shaky black strokes, almost too light to see.

Felix pulls out a chair from one of the desks, sitting down. As he pulls out his phone, he keeps half of his attention on Nathaniel. The other boy never minds anyone watching him draw; some people grow  _ so flustered  _ with an audience. Several times, Felix suggested Nathaniel start doing informal livestreams. He knows he’d attend to watch the other boy draw. It was a work of art, of beauty, every time he started capturing the ideas floating around in his head.

Even now, as Nathaniel branches away from his rough outline and erases it, Felix watches as he grabs one of the blue markers. Then, Le Paon starts to come to life before him. Nathaniel starts with his combed hair, the feather from his mask too perky and high to allow all of it shown. He embellishes the feather a little, making it wider and fluffier than Duusu ever does. Otherwise, Felix worries it’ll obstruct his vision. 

“Are you just gonna watch me?” Nathaniel asks as he colors the green in Le Paon’s eyes.

Felix hums. “What do you want me to do?”

“You know…” Without looking back, he grasps at one of the markers and tosses it back. It overshoots dramatically and clatters several feet to his right. “I’ve never seen you try and draw. Surely, as an intern for GABRIEL, he makes you sketch every once and awhile.”

“My job is strictly the business end of things. I can’t draw to save my life.” Nonetheless, he gets up to get the marker for Nathaniel.

He snorts. “See, that’s not true. If you’re good at business, you’re good at math. And art has a certain level of… Math involved.”

“You hate math.” He joins Nathaniel at the front and offers it.

He ignores him in favor of doing the outline of the rest of Le Paon’s body. “So I hated that comparison. But I figured you’d like it since you’re a nerd.”

“Nerd?” Felix places the marker down and goes to retreat back to the seat.

Nathaniel reaches out blindly and grabs his wrist. “Please, Felix? Give it a shot. And hey, if it’s bad, we have to erase it anyway.”

“Well, that’s encouraging.” He barks out a laugh before Nathaniel frowns. After a few seconds of floundering for the right words, he huffs and uncaps the marker instead. It’s red, so he supposes he could attempt Ladybug. Or just  _ a  _ ladybug. They’re easier enough to draw; circles with more circles on top of them.

When he starts scooting away, Nathaniel doesn’t release his grip. “Where are you going?”

“To draw?” Felix carefully withdraws his grip, removing Nathaniel’s hot hand from where it settled. “I don’t want to ruin your masterpiece.”

“It wouldn’t be ruining it.” Finally, Nathaniel tears his gaze away from his drawing and offers a bright smile. “Art’s meant to be an expression of yourself, right? Then, I just want to see how you express yourself. That’s not ruining it. It’s, like… Capturing our friendship on this whiteboard. It’s showing how well we work together. It’s—”

“And I thought you wanted to be an artist. You’re giving poets a run for their money.” He rolls his eyes. Still, he draws a tiny circle to make a ladybug. If you focused just on Nathaniel’s face, you would think Felix painted the Mona Lisa at that moment. His scowl starts to give way to a smile before he manages to school his expression. “I thought you were meant to be drawing too. Isn’t this a  _ union  _ of our art?”

“Oh, right.” It takes a few seconds for Nathaniel to stop smiling fondly upon him before turning to continue his artwork. 

Felix thinks he might snap the marker from how hard it grips it, might bear a hole into the whiteboard from how hard he stares at it. If he looks over at Nathaniel, he  _ knows  _ he’ll break his composure, and he won’t… He won’t do that. This was supposed to be a way to get away from the disastrous movie shoot and do something nice for Nathaniel. It wasn’t meant to be a chance for Felix to completely embarrass himself.

They work in comfortable silence until Nathaniel finishes Le Paon. Then, Felix ventures the question. “So, who’s the next one?”

“Next one?” Nathaniel blinks.

He nods. “Obviously, Le Paon’s your favorite. So who’s the next best thing?”

“Well, yeah, Le Paon’s my favorite. He reminds me a lot of you actually.” Nathaniel doesn’t note how Felix stiffens. He wonders if Duusu can sense something wrong from his bookbag, currently draped over the back of the chair. Yet, they discuss everything too softly for his kwami to possibly hear. 

Swallowing, Felix tries to come off as casual. “So would you draw me a lot?”

“I would if I thought I could capture it well. I think anything less than perfection wouldn’t be flattering.” Nathaniel starts to reach for the red and black marker, and Felix relinquishes them easily. He doodled three ladybugs on the whiteboard by Le Paon’s side, and all of them look lopsided and imperfect.

Then, Felix thinks about it. “Didn’t you draw Adrien the other day?”

“Adrien’s completely different than you.”

“We’re  _ identical twins.” _

“I know.” 

With every word in this conversation, Nathaniel manages to throw him off more. At this rate, Felix has no shot at being able to get his footing again. Before he can muster off an appropriate response, something sarcastic but genuine enough Nathaniel won’t be offended, something hits the door with a splatter.

They both turn to see pink goo covering the window out in the hallway. Nathaniel snorts. “Do you think that’s our cue to rejoin them?”

“Are they having a paintball fight?” Felix wrinkles his nose in distaste.

And then, the akuma alarm goes off throughout the school for the first time.

-

“You know, I’m really not a fan of the akuma alarm. I get why we needed to have it, but it’s frustratingly loud. It’s louder than the  _ fire alarm.  _ There’s no way akuma attacks happen more often than school fires!” Adrien darts up the stairs, leaving his classmates beneath him. His lie only works so well; he insists he needs to find Felix. And he  _ does.  _ He doesn’t want to abandon Felix with a dangerous akuma roaming around, but he knows Adrien Agreste can’t do anything. They  _ need  _ Chat Noir.

Plagg peeks out from his jacket pocket. “Kid, how often do you think the school gets set on fire?”

“More often than supervillains attack!” He finds the classroom and skids inside, slamming the door behind him. Then, he sinks down to make sure the view from the window doesn’t reveal him.

It takes a few more seconds for Adrien to really take in the state of the room. “Oh…”

“Looks like the akuma already came and went,” notes Plagg. He floats out despite Adrien’s hiss to remain hidden. Flying over to the pinkish green goo, he sticks a paw in and licks it. Adrien gags. “You know, it really doesn’t taste like anything. I thought it’d taste like something at least.”

“You’re so gross,” Adrien says. As he straightens to peer at the goo, he hesitates when he sees the writing. “Do you think Hawkmoth… Do you think he  _ knows  _ we were at the school already?”

“No chance, kid. He knew you’d have to come to the school eventually with our fancy new akuma alarm.” Plagg gestures up at the ceiling where the lights still flash and the sound still drones. 

It calms some of his nerves. “Why does Hawkmoth even hate us that much? What’s his  _ goal?” _

On the board, he wrote a message specifically to Chat Noir. It might be a coincidence; maybe he’ll find messages to Ladybug and Le Paon in other rooms. This one, though, rattles him down to his core. 

Plagg returns to him. “Don’t bother with him. He’s stupid.”

“Yeah…” But that isn’t what Adrien reads from the board. Hawkmoth, or the akuma rather, outlined moves Adrien made during akuma attacks. It points out when he plunged from Stoneheart’s hand even though it might lead to his death. It points out when he showed up late to attack the Bubbler. It points out when he almost skidded into the frozen river during Stormy Weather. It points out the guard uniform he donned when they attacked Mr. Pigeon. And all of them loop back around, an arrow, pointing to phrases written out on the chalkboard. 

_ RECKLESS. ONLY IN IT FOR THE THRILL. INCOMPETENT. UNNEEDED.  _

His ear stings, and he swats at the sudden pain. Plagg dances out of the shot and glowers. “Seriously. Nobody gives a shit what Hawkmoth thinks anyway. He thinks  _ you’re  _ incompetent? If we wanted to take over Paris, we would’ve done it already unlike  _ some people.” _

“Plagg, are you saying we’d be a better supervillain than Hawkmoth?” Adrien says slowly.

He starts to nod before pausing. As he takes in Adrien, Plagg groans. “No, I take it back. You’re too soft. I don’t think you have it in you to be a supervillain… You’d probably apologize after every single attack.”

“So I’m a worse supervillain than Hawkmoth and a worse superhero than Ladybug and Le Paon?” Flinching as soon as the words are out of his mouth, he realizes how small he sounds… Like he’s searching for compliments from Plagg. And judging by Plagg’s disbelieving look, he can sense how greedy Adrien sounds too. “Sorry, that’s—”

“If it makes you feel better, Le Paon and Ladybug could probably be decent supervillains. They have a lot more darkness inside of them than you.” He offers a toothy smile. “And then, you’d get a chance to prove yourself against them. I think you could take down Ladybug.”

“I would  _ never  _ hurt my lady—”

“And  _ this  _ is why you’d be a bad supervillain.” Settling down, Plagg curls up in Adrien’s open palm. As he lounges there, he butts the ring with his head. “So, are we gonna get going? I really don’t want to hear this stupid alarm anymore.”

“You got it, Plagg…” Adrien pauses. Then, he reaches down and pulls off one of his tennis shoes. Getting to his feet, he walks over to the chalkboard. Barely even flinching  _ (because these were his good tennis shoes and his father would lecture him if he knew he intentionally did this),  _ he covers every surface in goo before tossing towards the back of the room. 

Plagg blinks. “Who’s gross now? I can’t believe you were judging me.”

“So this way, when they start asking where I went, they’ll think I disappeared. Instead of thinking I’m Chat Noir.” He offers a huge grin.

He snorts. “Never mind, you do have potential as a supervillain.”

_ “Plagg, claws out!” _

As usual, the cold invades his veins and starts gnawing away at the warm buzz of Plagg’s compliments. Every time Adrien transforms, it creeps through him like this. He’s grown used to it; at this point, he barely even hesitates before moving again. It’ll fade soon enough, so he goes towards the window. 

Tugging it open, he slings outside and snaps it shut again with his boot. He grabs his baton off his belt and leaps off the ledge. Now, Chat starts heading towards the front of the building. When he arrives on the scene, nobody ever needs to know he came  _ from  _ the school  _ to  _ the school. While Ladybug may not think he takes precautions with his identity, he takes  _ enough  _ in his opinion.

He arrives at the front door of the school and hesitates. A thick layer of goo immersed the school, and when Chat takes his baton, it barely budges. As it continues to cascade downwards, he manages to keep pushing it enough to sneak into the school. Rolling to a stop, Chat gags at the goo which managed to settle on the leather of his costume. 

Then, he glances up as something flashes. Narrowing his eyes, he blinks until the light goes away… And then Alya stands in front of him with her phone out. “So, Chat Noir, what can you tell us about this newest akuma? Are you just arriving? Was it the alarm system that alerted you? Does that prove this is effective?”

“I’m glad to see we’re starting off strong.” Chat grins at her before getting to his feet. “I can probably manage to get you guys out of here if you want. I don’t know how well anything else will cut through the goo.”

“I’m staying,” Alya says.

“Well, then!  _ Goo- _ d for you!” He waves at her before starting to bound away. Alya mutters a curse and grabs his tail, sending him to the ground. He manages to shift and roll to catch himself. “I gotta go, so I’ll see you next  _ slime.  _ We got an akuma to catch!”

“Wait!” Alya keeps shoving the phone camera in his face. “Are there any new protocols now that we’ve  _ created  _ this alarm system?” 

Chat wants to say that’s a question for Ladybug and Le Paon… Which would highlight his incompetence. Which everyone keeps commenting on during the Ladyblog and even Hawkmoth caught onto it. But…

Plagg laughs inside his mind.  _ ‘Do you want to talk about protocol? Let’s just go fight something, right?’ _

“Right…” He murmurs to himself. Then, he straightens and grins. “That is a question for Ladybug and Le Paon.”

And Chat can decipher this later. Chat can decide how he actually feels about pawning off official business to everyone else. Maybe he’s not meant to run an operation… After all, in his actual life,  _ Felix  _ was the one who was chosen to run GABRIEL.

But now is not the time.

-

For the most part, every teenager who attends this school  _ clearly  _ needs to work harder to get higher grades. Or, the school needs to reevaluate how easy their curriculum is. None of these kids possess an  _ ounce  _ of common sense. Yes, it may be framed like a horror film. But the akuma alarm  _ (which he shut off)  _ and the view being altered to reflect the pink goo covering  _ every light source  _ should tip them off. In horror films, you should get out while you still can rather than stick around and die.

At least, Le Paon  _ assumes  _ it works that way. He doesn’t waste time watching ‘scary movies’ with Adrien where the half plot might as well be thrown out.

He joins their little  _ search party  _ when the group relocates to the original classroom. It took longer than expected to shake Nathaniel off his tail. While Le Paon feels a little bad for leaving him alone, he knows Nathaniel would join up with the main group sooner than later.

Chat notices him first, perking up from where he crouches down to a shoe. “Man, you really enjoy being fashionably late, don’t you?”

“In case you didn’t notice,” Le Paon starts. Then, he pauses as he notes one too many cameras focused on him. When he glances at Ladybug, she huffs and sighs. Okay then, they’re letting this livestream stand, “it’s nearly impossible to get in and out of this school. Just getting to the right location took most of my energy, so excuse me if I’m not sprinting around following false leads like some people here.”

“False leads? We’re trying to find the missing students! We found Adri—that one kid’s shoe.” Ladybug gestures down at the slime-covered shoe.

Le Paon stares at Adrien’s shoe. And then looks at Chat Noir. “So that kid’s gone?”

“He must be.” Chat nods. “The shoe’s, like, all the proof you need.  _ Shoe-se  _ to believe me if you want. Get it? Like  _ choose?” _

“It wasn’t that complex of a joke.” As he turns around to hide the fondness in his eyes, he starts to inspect the remaining classmates. Juleka, Rose, Chloe, Sabrina, Nino, Alya, Nathaniel, Ivan. Everyone else must’ve been taken by surprise by the akuma. They really need to get on naming them.

A second after he decides what he wants to say, Chat bounds forward and slaps his arm around his shoulders. “I’m going to make you smile today. It’s not as good as milady’s smile, but it’d be nice! We can all  _ bond!” _

“Chat, eyes on the prize,” Ladybug says, but she makes no attempt to hide her fondness.

Then, the room erupts into scattered screams as a long arm lashes across the sky. When he follows it back to its source, he finds a beast standing in the back of the room. The gooey arm clutches…  _ Nathaniel…  _ in its grip, and the redhead screeches in fear. Everyone else starts darting towards the door, but the beast spits out goo to obstruct the door. Maybe  _ goo  _ isn’t right. Maybe it’s more  _ glue. _

Ladybug clears her throat. “Run! Get out! We can handle this one!”

“Oh, can we?” Le Paon grumbles. Nonetheless, he slides toward the back door at the same moment Chat Noir grins and launches himself straight at the beast. He wants to take a second to try and figure out the  _ why  _ behind this. But trying to figure out why Chat makes dumb choices might as well be running in circles.

As he ushers them out, letting Chat serve as a diversion, he notes Juleka in the corner. “This is so  _ awesome.” _

“It’ll be less awesome when you get kidnapped,” snaps Le Paon.

Ladybug reaches up and wraps her yo-yo around Chat, dragging him back from Horrificator. He lets out an indignant yelp as he lands beside her. “What? I was doing great! Cats aren’t afraid of  _ slimy toads.  _ What’s its name anyway?  _ Drool-lator?” _

“We need to find the akuma,” shouts Ladybug instead, ignoring his comments. “Block the door!”

“You can’t seriously think that’s a good idea! It’s too close quarters to have an actual fight!” Le Paon protests. Still, his eyes stray to Nathaniel for a split second. With how close every blow will be, there’s a good chance Nathaniel will get hurt in the crossfire. That’s just… Not becoming of superheroes.

Sliding across the slimy floor, Ladybug gets to Juleka and starts forcing her towards the door. “Get going!”

“I’m not afraid! I want to watch!” Juleka protests.

Le Paon scowls. “Don’t be an idiot!”

Then, the akuma roars over their impending argument. He flinches back into the door, and Ladybug makes a yelp between her teeth. It grows and expands, pushing at the ceiling. It flips to grab at Juleka, who doesn’t even blink… And then it shrinks again. 

“Block the door! I get it now!” Ladybug reaches for her yo-yo, as if to secure the door even if Le Paon won’t.

He steps away from the door. “We can’t  _ fight  _ in here!”

“We don’t need to fight—”

But the beast bursts out of the door, and Ladybug lets out a loud growl. “I told you! It’s… Why don’t you listen to me?”

“I’m keeping the citizen safe! Weren’t you the one who thought we should work to keep everyone as safe as possible?” he snaps in return.

Juleka and Chat look between the two of them. Then, Chat nudges her towards the door. When his voice comes out, it lacks most of its usual bounce, its excitement. “Guys, do we need to fight about this right now? I thought we were getting along ever since Fluffy!”

“The akuma—”

“Sticky,” interjects Chat. When both of them turn to him, disbelieving, he throws his hands up in mock mercy. “We need to name all of the akumas, right? So, I thought we could name this one Sticky.”

“So,  _ Sticky  _ thrives on fear. You saw how it grew when we reacted in fear, and it shrunk when Juleka and Chat didn’t flinch! So, if we just weren’t scared of it, it would’ve shrunk down enough we could  _ break the akuma!  _ Nathaniel was never in any danger!” She huffs as she pushes past him towards the back door. “How could I think I would endanger anyone’s life if I didn’t know what I was doing?”

“You  _ still  _ don’t know what you’re doing.” He hurries to keep in step. Chat trails behind the two of them, and he hears the squelching of their feet through the goo. “This is all a hypothesis; you don’t know if you’re right yet.”

“I know  _ enough—”  _ She cuts herself off and takes a deep breath. “Chat’s right. Let’s not argue. It will be easy enough to find, uh,  _ Sticky.  _ Unlike the last one, she appears to be leaving us a trail to follow…”

Her voice trails off as they walk out into the court. Beneath, amidst the rosy glint and the slick walls, a few faces still peer up at them. Juleka, Rose, Nino, Alya. And Alya continues to record them… He wonders if Alya constitutes as scared of the beast. While Nino appears torn between whipping out his own camera or not, Alya continues shoving her phone into everyone’s face as if to remind them she runs the Ladyblog.

Chat Noir leans forward, practically somersaulting over the railing. “Do you guys want to go hunt a  _ monster?  _ It’s like Ghostbusters but less so! An indie film’s Ghostbusters!”

And then he winks at Nino. Subtle.

“You’re inviting us to come?” Alya asks.

Le Paon elbows him. “You’re inviting them to come?”

“They’re coming along anyway.” Ladybug shrugs. When she grabs Chat’s shoulder to drag him back from the railing, he grins brightly. “We might as well make a party of it. Besides, if they’re welcome… They’ll be less scared.”

“I love it when you read my mind, Bugaboo!” He leans in to kiss her cheek, but she holds up her hand in time for him to kiss her palm.

Le Paon sighs. “Fine. Since I can’t dissuade you guys—”

“You can’t!” chirps Chat. “Let’s go find a spooky cellar!”

-

As they walk down the steps, she leans into both of them. Behind, she  _ knows  _ Alya continues to broadcast it to the entire world. “I’m taking point on this one, okay? No more questioning what I’m doing in the middle of us  _ doing it.” _

“I’m going to question you if it’s a bad idea,” Le Paon hisses back.

She resists the urge to scream. When she works with Chat, everything falls into place easily. Nobody ever challenges her authority, and the two of them operate on the same brainwave. While Le Paon and Ladybug  _ begin  _ to act like a team, they still act like different separate figureheads. One of them needs to back down as a leader. After all, they don’t need two for a  _ three-person team. _

Then, they reach the bottom of the cellar and she lets out a low breath. “So, this is what they meant by a supervillain lair.”

“Actually, Hawkmoth probably lives somewhere high.”

“What?” Ladybug spins around, curious. Whenever she thinks about Hawkmoth, Tikki tends to interrupt her train of thought by asking about Chat Noir. If she wants to find his identity, she’ll need to find her partner’s first. She doesn’t understand Tikki’s insistence at sleuthing out everyone’s identities, but whenever she tries to press on the issue, Tikki retreats. She  _ does  _ tell Marinette she didn’t believe in identity reveals before, but recently… Things changed.

Alya nods. “Well, he’s the  _ Moth  _ Miraculous. So, he’s likely in one of the highest buildings here, right? He needs a good vantage place, and it needs to be a decent place for the butterflies to live. After all, they always return to normal butterflies and then fly away again.”

“That’s a good—”

“Eyes on the prize, milady.” Chat nudges her affectionately.

She laughs and nods. “You’re right. I’m sorry. We’ll have to discuss this later, Alya, but I am curious.”

Then, Ladybug continues to inspect the cellar. Pink-green pods sit all around the room, holding the silhouette of students. Taking a guess, she steps forward and knocks against the first one. The silhouette flinches. “Chloe?”

“Ew,” Alix responds. Then, she hums. “Ladybug?”

“Yes! Okay, let’s see if the rest of the students are here—”

“Why are we wasting time? Where else would they be?” Le Paon pulls out his fans and starts flying to the higher area of the cellar. She scowls and yanks out her own yo-yo, wrapping it around on his ankle and forcing him down.  _ “What?” _

“You’re not the one we want to confront Sticky—”

As if hearing her name, the beast emerges and spits out a fiery glob. It lands on the wall right behind the students who all manage to duck in time. As it starts to crystallize and harden, the beast creeps out from her hiding spot and starts pulsing, growing steadily bigger. Someone behind her,  _ Rose,  _ gasps raggedly as it stretches, only prolonging its strength.

Then, a cocoon, much like the pods the students are trapped in, slaps against her cheek. “Huh. I thought that’d explode like a paintball. I’m not going to lie; that’s a bit of a disappointment.”

“What are you doing?” she whispers at Chat.

He flicks his tail, and his smile grows ever wider. “What  _ aren’t  _ I doing? Hey, Sticky! Let’s  _ dance!” _

Then, Chat starts pelting the beast. As she makes a guttural noise, lurching after him, he lets out a bright peel of laughter. Darting across the railing, he doesn’t even seem to notice Sticky starting to shrink in her desperate pursuit of him. 

“It’s a fun thing about daredevils,” Le Paon says after a second. “They tend to be fearless.”

“I wish he could give some of that bravery to me,” she agrees.

Something flashes in the corner of her vision, and she leaps at Le Paon, tackling both of them to the ground. Seconds later, something crackles and hisses as it hits the pavement. Twisting, she manages to get the beast back into her vision. Sure enough, it turned just enough to send something at them. And judging by the way her heart thunders in her chest, the beast hears its rhythm and grows in power again.

“How do you just…  _ Stop  _ being afraid?” she whispers, more to herself than Le Paon.

He makes a noise. “Steal something from Chat?”

“He’s busy being the… Diversion…” She shoves off Le Paon, ignoring his grumble at the forcefulness. Bounding forward, she ducks around the corner and says a prayer. Hopefully, the lucky charm will agree with her problem-solving skills. But if they focus on something else, if they allow a diversion, they aren’t focusing on what terrifies them anymore. Then, it isn’t scary anymore!

She remembers watching scary movies with Nino and Bridgette. Marinette always got spooked, but Bridgette sat back against the couch and scrolled on her phone. She never liked jumpscares. As a result, she never got scared because any time something suspenseful appeared, she would return to Instagram.

_ “Lucky Charm!” _

And from the sky, the lucky charm decides to agree with her. As guitar strings land in her open palms, she grins. “Le Paon, how do you feel about joining Chat as a diversion? I need Sticky to get in an exact position for her very own…  _ Viewing party.” _

“Viewing party?” He takes a few seconds before sighing. “Fine, okay, what do you want from me?”

“Get her to lunge at you.”

“That won’t be difficult. Middle of the cellar?” When Ladybug nods, he nods and steps to the middle. Twisting until he manages to catch Chat’s eyes, he jerks his head back. Chat makes a loud noise, and Ladybug doesn’t even know how to interpret it. Then, he turns enough to wink at her, bold and bright and  _ shining. _

He takes his baton and lunges across the full length of the cellar. As Sticky soars after him, desperate to catch him in this chase, Le Paon edges back and throws a dart straight up. It hits her haunch, and the beast roars, stilling in the air as she curls into a ball. She skids across the floor as she nurses her leg, almost ramming into the group of the students (leading to her growth again. At this point, Ladybug grows tired of the constant growth and shrinkage, but she has bigger concerns… Such as a pot-and-pan drumset). 

“Come here!” Ladybug waves down the students as she yanks the cart of available instruments closer with her yo-yo. Juleka moves first, hand clenched in Rose’s, and the two of them reach her in time for Ladybug to start distributing these. Then, she points and gestures for the rest to follow. 

When they don’t, she frowns. “What indie film is complete without a battle of the bands?”

_ “What?”  _ But that’s enough to get Alya scrambling to her.

Sticky staggers to her feet again and starts tearing across the cellar at Le Paon. He whips out his fans and leaps, trying to get higher and out of her grip. “Chat,  _ now!” _

_ “CATACLYSM!” _

-

The force of the  _ cataclysm  _ rips into him, tearing bits and pieces of him inside out. When he breathes, something starts to burn in the pieces of him missing. It burrows into the empty space until a void sits in his stomach, stretching and consuming everything else. The excitement, the easy laughter, disappears into a numbness. Even the happiness at the plan coming together disappears into the air, and something dark starts edging into his thoughts, thoughts he usually ignores. 

_ (Useless, reckless, brainless, inferior, less than, unwanted—) _

He gags as he continues sprinting, claws outstretched to hit the bars. His whole body convulses for a second as he hits the end, and he falls to his knees, sliding to a stop. When he manages to clear his vision enough  _ (when did he start crying?),  _ he can spot the way everything goes still and silent beneath him. Ladybug glances up at him, hand clutching at the spot above her heart, while Le Paon gasps and staggers into a pillar.

It takes him a second to realize the very air around them turned black. It already eases back into color, but the cataclysm insists on being felt, being heard. Neither of the others’ powers feels… So  _ oppressive.  _ But he can think about that one later too because people are starting to recover from the wave of despair he released into the air.

He pounces down, landing on his feet, and sweeps into a dramatic bow. It inspires a laugh out of Ivan. “He’s my favorite.”

“Okay, kitty. I believe you.” Ladybug reaches for him, and when her hand lands on his shoulder, something unspoken drifts in the air. When he catches the look in her bright blue eyes, full of concern and confusion, he shakes his head and smiles. He’s fine, he’s good, and she doesn’t need to think about that anymore. “We’re going to sing.”

_ “Sing?”  _ He glances around at the ragtag band assembled. A few of them hold traffic cones to their lips, others hold trash can lids in order to make crash cymbals… And Ladybug seems to have made some sort of banjo for Le Paon, who holds it with obvious disdain. Chat throws up his hands. “I’m in.”

“Thank you. After all, the only way to get through this is to get through the fear.” Ladybug kicks her cardboard box closer to stand in front of them. It takes a few seconds for him to realize she intends to conduct the batch of them. “So, we all know Smelly Wolf, right?”

As Chat sits at the assembled drumset, he leans across the drum to Ivan. “More like  _ Sticky Wolf,  _ am I right?”

He does not get a high five for that.

“Okay, everyone!” Ladybug starts clapping her hands together to show the beat. All of them exchange eye contact, and Chat flicks up a finger to show for them to wait. He really wants her to start this off…

_ And Le Paon smiles. _

Chat cracks up underneath his breath. “Is that what it takes for you to be happy? To embarrass someone else?”

“It’s good-natured,” he replies. But the glint in his eyes makes it clear he intends to mock her for this later on. He thinks it’s fair; at some point, Le Paon will slip up and they’ll mock him relentlessly. It’s the way of the Miraculous Team.

Ladybug starts the tune, and when she notices nobody else says anything, she spins around and glowers before breaking out into a wider smile.  _ “Smelly wolf, smelly wolf, trapped in the stinky hut…” _

_ “Smelly wolf, smelly wolf…”  _ They continue on, and Chat stops trying to contain his laughter. This time, he breaks down laughing over it, and he can hear Ladybug giggling in between her words. The whole air just feels… Light again. As if Cataclysm can’t quite reach them anymore.

Though he knows he’ll get a discussion with Plagg about this later on, in the quiet of night, when neither of them can see each other’s faces. And Plagg will talk about everything is fine and Adrien overreacts about everything until Adrien asks about that darkness, and then they drift into silence.

“It’s working,” Le Paon announces as Sticky shrinks farther down. 

Ladybug gestures for them to keep singing without her, and she slips through the makeshift prison bars. Reaching down, she plucks off a button and holds it up in the air. “And we found ourselves the akuma. No more evil-doing for you, little akuma. Time to de-evilize!”

As his hands stop beating out the rhythm, he finds himself just staring at Ladybug. As she reaches upwards, performing her superpower, he always feels like he’s watching a movie star. She  _ fits  _ in this role well. She fluctuates between a harsh teacher and an understanding friend and a quiet mentor, but none of them fail her. Even in the moments where her cheeks go red with frustration, anger knitting its way across her features, she can always take a step back and keeps her nerves from getting the best of her. She refuses to allow people to get the better of her, and she  _ knows  _ how to control  _ herself.  _ Adrien never really knows how to control himself.

Then, as the room starts to reset around them, she bounds forward. “And  _ that’s  _ how we keep fear from getting the best of us.”

“I’m never afraid when you’re around, bugaboo.” He grins and holds out both of his fists. “Pound it?”

“Both fists?” Le Paon cocks his head.

He grins. “I missed it last week… Though I’m assuming you did it without me!”

Before he can decipher the looks upon both of their faces, they both lean forward. “Pound it!”

-

“Hey!” Adrien slides onto the bench next to Nino. As he observes Nino’s posture (hands behind head, stretched back as far as possible), he tries to copy it. It takes about three seconds for him to remember to correct his posture, and he sits ramrod straight again. “I didn’t expect to see you here so early!”

“I didn’t expect to see  _ you  _ so early.” Nino pauses the song and slides his headphones down to his neck. “Doesn’t your old man have, like, crazy strict rules about when you get to leave the house?”

“I had a photo shoot last night. So, the Gorilla dropped me off here rather than going home for about twenty minutes.” With a shrug, Adrien pulls his clunky backpack to his lap. 

As he processes the words, he tries to connect the timeline. “Wait, you didn’t get home until at least six last night because of the akuma attack. And Kim was bragging he managed to snag you for some last-minute fencing practice. And it’s  _ seven  _ right now. Did you have any time to sleep?”

“I slept two days ago.” Adrien beams as he starts to spin buttons around idly. Then, he pauses and shifts closer to Nino. As he nudges him, he taps at his phone. “I’m sorry about the film competition. I know you’ve been working really hard on it for awhile.”

“It was a stupid project anyway. I’m not meant to be a film director.” He snorts. “Alya would agree with that one.”

“What was up with that? I thought you really liked each other.” While Adrien refuses to look at him, he makes a face up at the sky. Nino takes a second to examine him; the two of them match today. Both of them chose to forego sleep last night, but while Adrien doesn’t have any noticeable bags under his eyes, Nino  _ knows  _ he resembles a raccoon today with his baggy clothes and deep, purple moons. Adrien has his own version of not being put together—he wears something which looks like it might’ve come from Felix’s closet instead of his, and while brushed, his hair starts to stray from its usual positioning.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. How do you know you don’t like someone because you’re using them?”

“You’re using Alya?” Adrien blinks. Then, his eyes go wide. “You think she’s using you?”

“Maybe I’m just the most interesting thing because I got akumatized. Maybe the second, like, Kim gets akumatized, she’ll leave me for him. And she loves that Ladyblog more than anything else.” Letting out a long breath, he finds Alya starting to walk up the steps to the school with Marinette. “How do you know if someone  _ is  _ using you?”

“In my experience, people don’t play the long game if they have one goal. They’ll be your friend for a day, a week, and then they’ll get what they want. I think because Alya hasn’t left yet, it means you need to stop thinking that about her. ‘Sides, I don’t think she’s one to use anyone.” Adrien shuffles his feet. “But I haven’t been the best at detecting that one in the past, so take what I’m saying with a grain of salt.”

“Shit, dude, I forgot…” Nino laughs to fill the empty silence. He forgot  _ what?  _ Being a male model must be harder than anything Nino could consider himself? Being a famous teenager means everyone seeks out favors? 

He laughs too, though. “I like that. It makes me feel like a normal teenager—Why are you laughing?”

“Sorry. That just felt eerily similar to Principle Damocles insisting he’s ‘hip with the kids.’” As he knocks their shoulders together, he gets another laugh out of Adrien. “But if it makes you feel better, I’d never use you.”

“I wouldn’t use you too!” Adrien reaches up and rubs the back of his neck, obviously uncomfortable. “I can’t believe we have to make that promise to each other.”

“It’s nice to get that out in the open.”

A silence starts to stretch between the two of them, but he clears his throat. “So, are you going to make up with Alya?”

“Probably? It was more of an unspoken thing. We just… Won’t speak about it and move on. Or she’ll be mad at me, so I won’t say anything. I don’t… I don’t  _ want  _ to apologize for this. And she doesn’t either. Because we’re both stubborn, and maybe that should be a clear sign we aren’t made for each other.” 

Alya sits on the steps to the school, playing on her phone. He pulls out his own and opens it to the Ladyblog. Adrien scoots over to watch it, brightening. “I haven’t gotten a chance to see her footage from the last fight!”

“And you spent all of that fight in a goo pod. Was it nasty inside?” Nino grins when Adrien makes a face. “Is it hard being a closeted nerd? Literally, just own up to the fact you like superheroes. Then, you can get all of the uncut footage Alya sends to Marinette when she doesn’t do a livestream.”

“I’m just interested!” Adrien goes pink before shaking his head. “I don’t need to watch it. It’s just… A fun stress-reliever.”

“I don’t know how you do it. I couldn’t hide all of my interests like this.” When Adrien flinches, Nino hurries to change his phrasing. It  _ did  _ come out unfairly harsh. “I know you have your reasons! I just don’t imagine it’s a fun way to live, dude. And… I guess thank you? For being real with me?”

Adrien mumbles something under his breath  _ (Nino thinks he says “opposed to being fake with everyone else?”),  _ but before Nino can ask about it, he presses onwards. “Thanks for being such a good friend.”

“Yeah.” Nino reaches for his headphones before pausing. Then, he reaches down and swaps them out for earbuds. “Want to hear my newest track?”

“You know it!”

And just like that, they fall into the usual,  _ more comfortable  _ rhythm. It’s less sappy this way, and this way, they can vibe in silence without saying anything. It doesn’t mean anything less. Nino still knows his best friend sits by his side, and Adrien still knows Nino wouldn’t leave him. And that is enough for him.

-

_ “You know he’s not going to be able to see it when you transform, kit.” Trixx sat on the comforter of the bed, tail swishing back and forth in the air. Everything in the room was  _ soft;  _ soft bed, soft carpet, soft paintings, soft books. In a way, as she glanced around, she found the illusion of a soft, pretty, superficial girl. She had to admire someone who kept up the facade of someone else for their entire life. _

_ Her fox paused as she shuffled through her vanity, searching for makeup. “It’s not for him, it’s for me. Just knowing it’s on makes me a little… Bolder.” _

_ “That’s disgusting.” Flipping over, she stared up at the ceiling. _

_ The bed dipped down beside Trixx, and her wielder’s hair flew across her face. As she spluttered, her wielder started to laugh. “Why are you so against this? I don’t expect anything to come out of it. I just… It makes me feel good.” _

_ “Because it won’t end well. Why would you insist on something that’ll hurt you in the long run?” Trixx huffed and started twirling her hair between her paws. As much as the dark hair suited her, she needed to mix it up a little. Maybe she could convince her to go blonde? That was a new trend in Paris, and Trixx always wanted to play around with hair dye. It felt natural for her illusions to extend to hair color, but most of her wielders disagreed. _

_ Her wielder shifted to face her. “Because it starts well. And it’ll be good, even if it’s just for a little bit.”  _

_ “It’s not even a peacock,” Trixx grunted. _

_ She nodded. “Well, yeah. If you couldn’t tell, the peacock wielder doesn’t exactly… Suit my type. Besides, the two of us work better as friends. You can tell we’re going to be friends for life.” _

_ God, Trixx wondered what if she did to get stuck with someone so sentimental. When she was on the field, her Wielder was analytical and cold. She slid back from every fight to get an outside perspective, and then she would do whatever it took to get ahead. Everywhere else, though, she was too… Soft. And warm. How could someone bounce back and forth between hardened and too, too weak? _

_ “Inari, you need to toughen up.” Whenever she said this, she always picked her Wielder’s Miraculous name. _

_ The girl laughed and flipped over, getting into a position to pounce. A familiar gleam entered her eyes. “Sure, sure, but you love me anyway. Wanna go out tonight? Go patrol the city? Keep an eye on everyone?” _

_ “See? When you talk like that, I can believe you’re my wielder. You should talk like that more often.” Trixx shifted forward to bop the girl on the nose. _

_ She laughed. “While I would love to be all business all the time, I can’t remain as a Miraculous Wielder forever. I’m just supposed to stay until the threat dies down, remember? And it’ll die down soon enough.” _

_ Trixx wanted, in that moment, to insist it never could. The threat would always be real and permanent, and she would never have to go back into that box. _

_ If only she could convince her Wielder to hide the Miraculous away. _

_ “You won’t know the butterfly Miraculous forever,” Trixx chose to say instead. _

_ She shrugged. “Then, it’ll just be a crush. What’s the harm in that?” _

**Author's Note:**

> pls pls pls don't read and run! I want comments and kudos to know whether this series is progressing well or not! If there's small critiques, then I will accept all of those :)
> 
> \---
> 
> PREVIEW
> 
> "Is he the one, Alix?"  
> "He is DEFINITELY the one!"  
> "Alix, are you planning to murder me?"


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